


Belonging is the meaning of life

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Depiction of grief, F/M, Fix-It, Force ghost as friends? don't mind if I do, Force nexus, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, everyone is OOC because apparently I can't write lol, i just had to okay, it might be like all other fix its but sue me I don't care, the character that appear besides Rey and Ben are all Force ghosts, well besides like... the merchants and Poe or Finn ya kno'
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21906238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "If there is one thing the Skywalkers are good at, it's not knowing when to give up."Rey doesn't quite believe that. Not until five years later she is proven wrong.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo
Comments: 19
Kudos: 54
Collections: TROS Reylo Fix-it Fics





	1. Life as she knows it

**Author's Note:**

> ALRIGHT SO I HAD TO DO IT TO THEM
> 
> It was a trashfire if I have ever seen one. I have so many bones to pick with this film, I could build a whole fuckin' skeleton up from it. So I just went ahead and wrote something. 
> 
> Again, not beta'd because a) I don't have friends and b) I'm way too impatient to post this lol. 
> 
> I am aware of the fact that there is probably seven other fix it fic at minimum with probably the same premise, so just let me have fun tHANK YOU
> 
> Also sue me but I liked Rey choosing the name Skywalker, so I'll be using it please don't come for me thank you.

At first, Rey mourned.

Once she buried the lightsabers, she burrowed down into the sand, finding an old bed. She collapsed the entrance of the cave she found herself at with a flick of her wrist. Total darkness engulfed her. A croaking sob broke out of her, and she gasped for air. Hot tears streamed down her face, her eyes stinging as if they were trying to force out as many tears at once as possible. She folded in on herself, clutching her head with both hands, tearing at her hair. 

She screamed until her voice grew hoarse from the effort of it. She screamed until her voice gave out, and even after that, she whimpered quietly, until she felt like she had no more tears to cry.

She felt empty, raw. Where there used to be a warm spot shaped like a human inside her, there now was a gaping void, oozing pain that pulsated out of her in waves, overcoming her and burying her beneath the weight of it all.

Oh, how she wished that he hadn't done what he did. How she wished nobody had done what they did. How she wished nobody died, because the pain of living when the people she loved so fiercely, the people she looked up to so much, the people she grew to love with a fondness in her heart, were all dead, was so incomprehensible that she nearly wished she wasn't alive to experience it.

Her hysterical crying eventually eased out into quiet hiccups and then ceased altogether. Her eyes were swollen shut, and she could barely breathe, but the worst of it was over. Her hammering pulse slowed to a more normal resting pace.

And then she slept.

-

She didn't know when she came to, it could have been an hour or decades later for all she cared. Her body, the traitorous beast, was trying to get herself to move, with a loud growling stomach and a painfully full bladder. Rey toyed with the idea of simply lying there and wasting away, but then something, or rather someone, didn't allow her to do that.

"Rey Skywalker, you get up this instant and do something about your situation or so help me, I will Force push you out of that bed."

That voice immediately made her sit up. Rey rubbed at her eyes, trying to regain focus. She found herself staring at a glaring Leia Skywalker. 

"That's better," Leia said, easing up on the angry look she was giving Rey. "What, you thought we'd abandon you after all that trouble?" she asked, chuckling at Rey's confused expression. She walked over to a rickety old chair and sat down on it. "No chance for that, my dear. You survived, and by the Maker we will not allow you to waste your second chance."

"What?" Rey managed to get out. "Who's we?"

She couldn't help but stare. It hadn't been that long since she saw Leia's and Luke's Force projection, and yet she simply couldn't understand how she was seeing Leia sitting in front of her. The Force ghost was a little different in that it was shimmering with an ethereal glow, but other than that, Leia looked like herself. Leia scoffed like Rey asked her a stupidly obvious question.

"A couple of Force users, actually," she replied. "A lot of past Jedi are rooting for you. I'm here as a first responder. Once you get back on your feet, they will come to you as well."

"But… but how?" It really was giving Rey a hard time understanding what Leia was telling her. She blinked confusedly, her sluggish brain trying to play catch up with the events.

"Actually, that's because you are probably the most powerful Jedi in a century or two." That came from a different voice. Luke walked into the room ever so casually and stood at the place where the entrance to the room would have been. "Your connection to the Force is incredible. When you called upon the past Jedi to help defeat Palpatine, you managed to awaken a lot of resting souls, who now cannot wait to meet you and help you on your journey."

The mention of the old Emperor sent a hot wave of resentment through Rey. The nauseating feeling of anger bubbled up in her chest, and she coughed at the bile rising in her throat.

"Please don't mention that name ever again," she managed to push out with as much control over her voice as she could muster. Still, it shook angrily, and she hated the fact that the old creature could get a rise out of her, even in his death.

Luke shrugged.

"You will have to face your feelings about him eventually," he muttered and then sighed. "Look, kid, I understand how you feel, but you can only defeat your anger by looking at it."

"Can I look another time?" Rey asked. She felt utterly drained of any energy to face the disaster that was the past few days. Maybe she'd never have the energy for it, she didn't know, but she certainly didn't have it now.

Luke shrugged. 

"You can, only if you remember that you can't run from it forever."

Rey nodded. That she could work with. If 'never' wasn't a viable option, 'later' was a lot better than 'right now'. 

"Alright, let's get this show on the road," Leia said, standing up. "Mind cleaning this place out? It must be pretty suffocating in here."

Now that Leia said it, Rey noticed that the air felt heavy on her chest. She stood and pushed at the sand covering the door and the window next to it with a wave of the Force. The sand was blasted outside, giving way to fresh air. Rey breathed deeply, appreciating the hot dry air the winds blew inside the room. 

"Ugh, I always hated sand." Now that was yet another voice, one Rey never heard before. She turned towards the source of the voice and saw a man, probably in his thirties. He was also a Force ghost. He had longer, wavy hair, dark clothes on, and a faded scar across his right eye. He reminded her of--

No. She wouldn't be going there. It was still too fresh, too painful for her to think about.

"Oh, hello Anakin," Leia greeted the newest addition to the little company with a smile. "Care to elaborate?"

"Sand gets everywhere," Anakin said, waving his hand dismissively. "It's very annoying."

"Well, that is the nature of sand I'm afraid," Luke countered, kicking at the sand that was slowly filling up the place again. It puffed out into a cloud that then got carried away by the wind.

"True, but still, you know," Anakin replied with a shrug of his shoulder. Luke nodded. He understood.

"Sorry, but who are you?" Rey asked, regarding the man with curiosity. He turned towards her with a wry smile.

"I'm Anakin Skywalker," he replied, "these two's father," he added, gesturing towards Luke and Leia. Rey inked in confusion.

"So… wait. You are Ben's--" She couldn't continue. Not because of the surreal revelation that the ghost standing in front of her, looking so young and healthy, was the father of her two older mentors, but because this was the first time she said his name out loud.

She slammed hand over her mouth, not allowing a single word to further escape. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the image of Ben, slowly fading away into the Force, disappear from her mind’s eye. She felt nauseous even though she hadn’t had a decent meal in--

“How long I’ve been out?” she asked, lifting her hand away, her voice shaking with the effort to push the words out. 

“Two days, I would like to say,” Luke said. His voice had a sad edge to it, as if he were trying not to intrude on some private moment. Rey nodded and raised her hands to massage at her eyes, trying to very subtly brush away the tears that gathered at the corners of her eyes. 

“Rey,” Leia said then, and she looked up at the Force ghost. Leia smiled at her and waved her closer with a hand. Rey walked over and stood in front of her, feeling incredibly miserable. Leia brushed at her cheek: it felt kind of like a human’s touch, but not quite, like there was a soft, velvety layer over Leia’s hand. “If there is one thing the Skywalkers are good at, it’s not knowing when to quit. Don’t worry about Ben. He’s going to find his way back. He might be Han’s son, but he’s mine as well, and so a Skywalker. Just like you.” She added that last sentence with a smile. Rey returned the gesture with a small smile of her own, though that smile didn't reach her eyes. 

“You talk like he’s still alive,” Rey replied with a quiet voice. She looked away from Leia, down to the ground. In her mind, she played back that last heartbreaking scene of a kiss and then Ben’s death. “I saw him die, Leia,” she whispered, unable to look away, even though she knew it wasn’t actually happening. “I saw him disappear and become one with the Force. I don’t think you can come back from that.”

“Oh, dear,” Leia replied, pushing Rey’s hair behind her ear. “Trust me when I say that he will. You aren’t a dyad for nothing. This wasn’t the end.”

“Forgive me for not believing that.”

Leia huffed affectionately and looked at Luke and Anakin. Luke shrugged, not knowing how to convince Rey, while Anakin just waved his hand, telling Leia to drop the subject. It wasn’t time just yet.

“Okay, kid,” Luke interjected, pulling Rey’s attention away from her horrible reminiscing. “We need to get you back into the world of living. Let’s go get some food and then pick this place up.”

Rey looked at Luke, her eyes gaining a haunted glint that wasn’t there before. It was questionable whether she was actually seeing Luke, or she was still in her memories, reliving the past couple of days. She blinked a few times, and focused on Luke. She nodded wordlessly and then looked around the moisture farm. It was indeed a disaster that needed to be cleaned up.

“This is quite nostalgic,” Anakin said, looking around as well. “You grew up here, right Luke?”

“Yeah, wasn’t the most exciting part of my life,” Luke scoffed. He walked over to one of the half-buried moisture vaporators and scrubbed at the dirt gathered on the surface of it.

“I can imagine,” Anakin replied with laughter in his voice. “My days on Tatooine weren’t any better if that helps.” Luke chuckled and shook his head. He wasn’t sure it did, but at least they could agree on that.

Rey wiped herself down with a wet cloth. She found some remaining water in one of the jugs hidden beneath a pile of sand. Even though it was stale, she drank deeply, if only just a swig or two, but her mouth felt infinitely better after. She made herself presentable, pulling her hair back into one bun low on her neck instead of her usual three. She didn't feel strong enough to fiddle with it for longer than that.

She took the speeder that she used to get here, and rode into Anchorhead. Mos Eisley was a little too far out for her current energy level. As far as she could tell, nobody but she saw the Force ghosts, so she had to be careful not to call attention to them, mostly because they didn't disappear when she left the old Lars homestead.

She bought herself food that could last her for a couple of days, and on her way back to the homestead, she also stopped at Tosche station, to grab some of the repair tools she knew she'd need to get the moisture farm back in working order.

"You'll need more than just that box of tools to get the old Lars farm up and running, young lady," the old merchant told her, and it sounded only a little patronising. Rey smiled at the old man and shrugged.

"I'll try my luck first," she said, and then went on her way after a quiet goodbye.

When she arrived back at the homestead, the first thing she did was move the sand out of the pit. It gave the farm a whole new look.

"We'll have to get better security around here," Anakin said with a mournful undertone. Rey looked at him with a curious expression.

"I would doubt we need higher security than a Jedi," she quipped, walking over to one of the storage sheds to start clearing out whatever was there.

“Look, just… Please,” Anakin went on while following Rey to the shed. There was an edge to his words that made Rey stop and look at him. He looked just as haunted as she felt when recalling Ben’s death. “Just install new security. It would give me a peace of mind. We don’t know how bad the Tuskens may have gotten.”

This seemed to be very important to Anakin, so Rey decided not to say anything further and just nodded in agreement. Anakin looked relieved at Rey agreeing, so he nodded as well and walked away, leaving Rey to do what she started.

Rey followed him with her eyes, and after that, just looked around at the homestead. 

There was work to do.

-

Years went by like that. 

Slowly but surely, the painful memories settled inside Rey. She still had flashbacks from time to time, when she had to stop what she was doing and had to retreat into her living quarters, which she chose to be one above one of the pumps that transferred the water from the vaporators to the containers. She would curl up on her bed, sometimes just staring at the wall, sometimes crying. Sometimes Leia would join her, combing her hair out of her face while she cried.

Sometimes she would be alone with her grief, nobody from the Force joining her to assist with the sudden onslaught of emotions. 

Sometimes she felt angry, and then either one of the Skywalker men, or one of the other Jedi masters she didn’t know personally, would join her and guide her on how to turn that anger to something more useful. There was a sense of regret when one of the other Masters joined her. She felt like they were trying to make a wrong right through her, and taught her how to process her emotions and not be afraid. 

Those mournful days came less frequently though. Rey didn’t know if she liked that or not. In a weird sense, she wanted to keep the pain alive, because then she knew this all happened and she felt that she was somehow keeping Ben’s memory alive. She wanted to hang onto the memories, because the more days passed, the less she remembered those precious moments when it was Ben Solo, and not Kylo Ren, looking at her with unabashed adoration and happiness.

Life went on in the meantime. She managed to get the Lars homestead up and running, and started to produce water, half for her consumption and half for sale. The other homestead that was close, the Darklighter homestead has been in a slow decline over the decades, Rey was informed by the ever-meddling shopkeep at Tosche station. People welcomed Rey’s appearance and the sudden upswing of moisture farming in the area.

Tusken Raiders did come by, not once, but each time Rey met them head on. It only took a few Jedi tricks for the Tuskens to back off and be scared of her. Townsfolk started talking about someone named Ben Kenobi, and started comparing Rey to him. Said Ben Kenobi, or Obi-Wan Kenobi, was also a regular Force ghost at Rey’s little farm, so when Rey told him how the people still remembered him, he laughed deep and told Rey to just embrace it.

With time, she also got to process the fact that Anakin was in fact Darth Vader, or at least used to be. It took a very tense conversation for Rey to understand that the man she was seeing wasn’t the same as the terrifying war machine who Kylo Ren used to idolize. There was some explanation on how the Jedi used to train their younglings, how they used to tell the kids not to form attachments, because such emotions could lead to the Dark Side. Rey understood the words Anakin was saying, but not what he really meant. It felt like an excuse to her.

“I get that,” Anakin said then. “It does sound like an excuse, but at the time, I was obsessed with this. I so loved Padmé, and the fact that my Masters were telling me not to, made me furious. Palpatine was also a very good manipulator. He got under my skin.”

“That doesn’t mean you should have turned away and join the Emperor,” Rey grumbled, her arms wound tightly around her torso. Anakin nodded in agreement.

“That is completely true, and I wish to this day that I hadn’t done what I did. I can’t make my past mistakes right anymore, I can only work to make the future a bit better.”

Rey sighed and looked away. It was still hard for her to just go ahead and forgive Anakin, knowing that if he hadn’t gone ahead and turned to the Dark Side, a whole lot of things wouldn’t have happened the way they did. Rey turned to Leia, who also joined them for this meeting.

“What do you say to this?” she asked, anger lacing her words.

Both Leia and Luke seemed to be okay with their father joining them as a Force ghost. After all the atrocities he committed, Rey expected them to shun him, to turn away from him, but that wasn’t the case.

“He feels… Different,” Leia said, looking at her father. “I can see that the years have done him good. Back when he was alive, he made our lives a living hell, and I hated him. Once he joined his Masters in the Force though… He feels calmer to me. Less prone to exploding.” Leia smiled and looked back at Rey. “His journey reminds me of Ben’s somewhat. Ben eventually found his way back to the Light as well.”

Rey looked away then, chastised. “I didn’t think of that.”

“It’s fine, Rey. There is still a lot you have to work through.”

And that was that. They never really revisited the topic, and after a while, Rey even forgot. For her, Anakin was Anakin: she knew him, if only as a Force ghost. Darth Vader though, she never knew and she didn’t even know how he could have been. It was easy to make the distinction between Vader and Anakin this way.

The moisture farm slowly gained popularity, eventually forcing Rey to think about expanding the homestead with at least one more vaporators. She decided to put that decision off for now. She was happy with her little farm because it was just big enough that she could manage it on her own.

Which was something she needed to get used to, being alone. Poe and Finn tried to come visit, but they never seemed to find the time. They were both busy with building the new Republic, taking an active part in the formation of the new government. Rey decided to opt out of that: knowing her efforts, she earned the privilege of not being involved, and everyone respected her decision. 

Poe came to visit only once during the years. Finn tried to come more times, but even he couldn’t come as often. Rey didn’t reach out to them as frequently either: she was busy managing the homestead and more often than not, Poe’s or Finn’s messages went unanswered for months.

Rey knew it wasn’t good, knew that she needed to keep the connections open, if only because she was a human just like anyone else, and needed the actual live company. She just couldn’t find the will in her to write first. Eventually their messages got short, only detailing what was going on with them.

And life went on.

-

It was exactly five years later to the day when she lost Ben when it happened.

She was standing outside, on the surface, putting boxes of supplies up onto the back of her speeder. She really needed to go into Mos Eisley to trade some of the more expensive water in for new clothes. She dreaded the journey, mostly because she found herself irritated by the people there. Anchorhead was a lot better, but not as populated. She had to go to Mos Eisley.

She straightened up, and that was when she saw the man approaching.

He was tall, bafflingly so. He had beige clothes on, the best type to wear in this weather. His dark hair curled outwards from beneath his hood. He had a backpack on his back, a water bottle on it swinging from side to side with his steps. Everything about him seemed to be so big. He had long limbs, a wide chest. 

But it wasn’t these details that grabbed Rey’s attention, but the eyes. 

His eyes were brown, reminding Rey of the potent liquor she sometimes purchased in Anchorhead. He looked at her, and Rey saw adoration and wonder shine in his eyes as he stared. The empty space inside her chest, where Ben’s presence in the Force should have been, sent waves of warmth through Rey’s body. 

She gasped when she understood.

“Ben?”


	2. Life as he knows it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright so a couple of things.
> 
> I would love to think that I caught Ben's personality, but I don't think I did. Also I am really unsure whether he had any Force ghosts visit him prior TROS, and for the sake of my fic, I will go with no.
> 
> As for Yoda's escape pod, I know that he used it to build his hut on Dagobah, which is something that again, I would like you to ignore for the sake of my fic. 
> 
> As usual, this is not beta-d. I don't have anyone I can ask for this type of help, so I just don't. If you find any grammatical errors, please let me know.
> 
> Also, I used [this guide](http://www.angelfire.com/or2/blackcathome/starwars/hyperspacetimes.html) on how long a hyperspace jump would take from Dagobah to Tatooine. This is also what I used for another fic I'm working on lol

At first, Ben floated.

The second his body became one with the Force, all pain stopped. He felt light like a cloud, slowly dispersing into thin air. The last thing he saw was Rey’s beautiful face, contorted into the beginning of a breathy cry. He smiled, trying to tell her even though he couldn’t anymore, that it will all be okay. 

And then he joined the current of the Force, his physical body melting away, only leaving his tattered clothes behind.

Time ceased to exist. Ben felt like he was nowhere and everywhere; the ground beneath him was solid and liquid at the same time. He moved his hand to try and feel out what was underneath him, and it felt like water, or like grass. The substance easily flowed through his fingers.

Ben laid there for what felt like minutes, but could also have been hours, just resting. Even though he didn’t have any injuries, he still felt like he was hit by a Star Destroyer. His muscles ached with the echo of effort that he put into surviving and then saving Rey. 

Eventually, he sat up and looked around. He couldn’t quite place where he was. The palace behind him was enormous in size, towering over him not too oppressively, but he still felt intimidated by the dimensions of the building. He was surrounded by images of old Jedi, some as statues, some as reliefs. He was looking out at a city spreading from one end of his vision to the other, running well beyond the horizon. It seemed like a city that never slept, with all the lights and the yellow and red corridors of moving vehicle lights. 

Ben sighed. It seemed to be familiar to him, and the name was on the tip of his tongue, but he just couldn’t place it.

“Welcome to Coruscant,” someone said from behind him and Ben turned towards the source. He saw a man, probably mid-thirties, wearing black robes. He had a scar running down his face, quite like the one Ben didn’t have anymore.

“This is Coruscant?” Ben asked, looking away and out at the city. It was a marvelous sight, not one Ben ever beheld when he was still alive.

“Yes, it is,” the man replied to him, while he walked over and sat down to the steps of the palace. He turned towards Ben. “And you are sitting at the Jedi Temple.”

Ben gasped, taken aback. He turned around, looking at the building behind him. He should have guessed, he thought. The statues were kind of a dead giveaway.

“How come we are here?” he asked. “Aren’t we now one with the Force? I thought…” He trailed off, not knowing how to finish the sentence. He thought the Force would be a barren place, filled with nothing? Probably yes. He certainly didn’t expect to be teleported to the old temple of the Jedi Order.

“Yeah, well, you know,” the man said, shrugging. “We were all people once, and constructing familiar spaces helps us retain ourselves. The Force can be nothing and everything at the same time. It isn’t limited by human understanding, like it is on the other side.”

Ben nodded, understanding. Or sort of understanding, at least. 

“Who are you?” he asked the man. The question seemed to have upset him, because he smiled, but his eyebrows were drawn together in a frown.

“My name is Anakin Skywalker,” the man replied. “I’m your grandfather.”

“My--” The rest of the sentence got stuck in Ben’s throat, forming an uncomfortable lump. He stared at the man, Anakin? He never heard that name. But the word “grandfather” rang a bell immediately, and the fact that he was a Skywalker… Didn’t take Ben too long to put two and two together.

“How dare you.” Ben spit out. He felt himself shaking with the effort of holding himself back, because as much as he wanted to launch himself at the man, they were in a Force created space, so nothing he wanted to do to him, would cause actual harm. “I begged you. I. Begged. For some type of, any type of guidance, and you never appeared. And now you have the audacity to just, I don’t know, waltz up to me like nothing happened? My life was ruined, and nobody ever helped.”

Anakin flinched at the anger in those words. He didn’t say anything while Ben raged on, just silently took his words. When Ben was finished and sat there, gasping for air, still shaking, Anakin looked up at him.

“Believe it or not, I tried,” he said, a wry smile on his face. There was more pain than mirth in that smile really. Ben scoffed and looked away. “No, I did. But Snoke, and by extension Palpatine, kept you locked up. Nobody from this side could reach you. No matter how much we tried.”

“And how did Rey manage it?” Ben asked back with venom in his words. He stumbled over Rey’s name only a little. His mind wanted him to go down the rabbit hole of what could have been, but Ben forced himself to stay present. Whenever he would be alone, if there was any sort of privacy as an entity now part of a living life force, he might entertain the idea, but not right now.

“Well, that’s the thing, she has something that we don’t,” Anakin replied. “You two are a dyad. It would require an enormous amount of power to be able to close that type of connection down.” Ben huffed out a laugh and shook his head. Of course, it had to be Rey who got through to him. The impossible nobody from nowhere who turned out to be so much more than what he thought. 

But then something gave him pause.

“What do you mean ‘are’?” he asked, frowning. “We were a dyad. As far as that is concerned, I am dead. The dyad is no more.”

Anakin smiled and shook his head. Ben couldn’t tell why Anakin was smiling, his expression was completely unreadable.

“You will see that there are things you can change, even now,” he said. “What would you do to get back to Rey?”

“Everything.”

“Well, there you go then. Just don’t give up hope. That’s not the Skywalker way.”

Ben shook his head and looked away. “I’m not really a Skywalker, now am I?”

Anakin laughed at that, and slapped a hand down on Ben’s shoulder, squeezing it.

“Son, you do just as many dumb things as any other Skywalker. You are one.”

Ben looked at him, hoping to find the kinship his statement promised. Hoping to feel that connection between them, like two members of one family, of one bloodline probably should, but he found himself not feeling any of that. 

“I’m also a Solo,” he added quietly. He didn’t know whether Anakin heard him, but judging by his amused chuckle, he did.

“Yes, that you are,” Anakin agreed. He then stood up and held his hand out to Ben. Instead of accepting it, Ben simply stood without help. Anakin frowned, but didn’t say anything. “Come, there are some people you must meet.”

Ben followed Anakin inside the Temple. The layout seemingly didn’t make much sense: a large room melted into corridors upon corridors, crossing each other at times. The interior height was incredible, three or four stories high up, the roof supported by smooth marble columns. Ben looked around in awe, unable to utter a word. He had a feeling that this building was designed with the exact purpose of drawing the same reaction he had out of the ones who took a step inside.

A couple of people were gathering next to one of the large pillars. When Ben got closer, he saw some familiar faces, but most were strangers to him. The familiar people were his mother and uncle, and he found himself running towards them. He fell into his mother’s embrace, a shaky breath tumbling out of his body. 

Ben felt someone pat his back, who turned out to be Luke when he lifted his head away from his mother’s shoulder and got to look at him. Luke smiled at his with a sad smile and simply opened his arms. Ben let go of Leia and hugged Luke. 

When Luke let go of him, he looked around, but could only see unfamiliar people.

“Where’s Dad?” he asked, turning towards Leia. She shook her head, looking away from him.

“Your father wasn’t a Force sensitive,” she said. “You can’t enter a Force created space if you aren’t able to sense the power that created it.”

Ben felt a stab of betrayal. He somehow hoped that his father would be here, too: this was an impossible space in an impossible time, how could only his father not be here? Apparently the Force wanted him to suffer just one last time. Ben huffed out an irritated sigh, but didn’t say anything further. He looked back at his mother, while cocking his chin towards Anakin.

“He said there are people I need to meet,” he added.

There was a strangeness to the whole situation with the man who called himself Anakin. He couldn’t exactly understand his place in all this. The man he idolized, Darth Vader, looked a lot different in his imagination. To associate the person standing in front of him, who didn’t look any different than he, with the almighty legend of the old Sith lord, was nearly unimaginable. On the other hand, knowing who he was, it was just as impossible to separate the man from the myth.

Leia nodded. She gestured to the two strangers standing near.

“These are Masters Yoda and Obi-Wan,” she introduced the two to Ben. He recognized the names at the very least even if he couldn’t place the faces. Luke talked about them many times during the Jedi training. “There are others as well. Your little stint with Rey woke up a bunch of people from deep slumber.”

“How come they aren’t here then?” Ben asked, looking around. As far as he could see, they were the only ones in the temple. 

“A vast space, the Force is,” Yoda replied. “For the others to gather, it takes time.” 

“And time is exactly what we don’t have much of,” Obi-Wan added. He gestured for Ben to follow him as he took a step towards another corridor. “Come with me. We have to hurry.”

“Hurry why?” Ben asked. He felt more and more confused, and the people around him weren’t giving him much information. Nevertheless, he followed Obi-Wan, the others quickly falling into step behind him.

“You haven’t been dead for long,” Anakin said. “You can still make it back if you are quick about it.”

That wasn’t that great of an explanation, if Ben wanted to be honest. Hasn’t been dead for long? Can still make it back? Make it back where? However, Ben didn’t voice any of his doubts. He felt a sense of urgency take root in the actions of the group that kept him quiet while they rushed past elegant statues and gently flowing fountains.

They finally arrived at a large door with intricate carvings on its surface. It seemed heavy, yet the little Master Yoda could open it with ease.

“The path beyond this door leads to the planet Dagobah in the Dagobah system. There is a unique place there, a Force nexus, where the Force is incredibly strong,” Obi-Wan explained to Ben. He gestured towards the space beyond the door, which was a quickly shrinking tunnel, mostly supported by the roots of an unseen tree. “If you go through here, you should come out on the other end, on Dagobah. Since you haven’t been here for long, your essence did not have the time to fuse itself one with the Force, so you will be able to come out alive at the other end.”

Ben stared at Obi-Wan, and then turned towards the tunnel. He took a step towards it, but then turned back to the group.

“I can’t go with you, son,” Leia said softly, understanding Ben’s hesitation in that moment. She smiled and held her hands out for him. Ben walked back to her, slipping into an embrace. “The others have been here far too long, and my time on that side has also come to an end. Yours hasn’t. Rey waits for you. You can’t leave her alone.”

Ben squeezed Leia close to him as he nodded. He took a calming breath, let go of his mother, and turned back to the tunnel. He nodded again, just to himself, and took a step inside the room, to the tunnel. He didn’t look back.

The way across was harder than he expected. It took what felt like hours to him. The tunnel quickly narrowed down into a difficult path. Many times Ben thought he wouldn’t be able to make it through, pulling his large body past the roots he saw earlier, and whatever else that may have been hiding in the ground.

Just when he thought about giving up, the tunnel widened. He could soon stand to his full height and walk. Other paths began to break down from the main one where he walked, leading away towards other destinations. At one of the bigger branches, Ben stopped, confused as to which way he should go. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, forcing his mind to quiet. He took a step towards one of the tunnels that his intuition pointed him towards, and went that way.

After walking for what felt like hours, if not days, he finally saw a brighter light illuminating the tunnel. He walked out from the tunnel, and found himself at a swampy place. Trees surrounded him that looked centuries old, foliage clinging to every surface. He took a deep breath, and was surprised to actually be able to breathe. His chest moved up and down with the action, air flowing into his lungs. He put his hand over his chest and felt his heart thump strong beneath his touch. Ben smiled and laughed. He was alive.

Just as he thought that, the people he met earlier appeared in front of him, this time as Force ghosts. Leia laughed brightly and rushed to hug Ben. It felt like she was touching him with a layer of silk between them. 

“You did it!” she exclaimed excitedly, letting go of Ben, only to grab his arms. “You made it through.”

Ben nodded, still smiling. He stepped back from Leia, and turned around, trying to identify some sort of waypoint out from the clearing. 

“How long was I out?” he asked absently. Weirdly enough, his clothes remained, the same tattered shirt, pants, and boots he wore when he died, but not his lightsaber. Other than his clothes, he had nothing on him that could be of help.

“Four years, give or take,” Luke said. Ben stopped in his actions and spun around to stare at him.

“Four years?” he asked in disbelief. How could have four years passed? To him, it felt like a day or two at most.

“Pass differently in the World between Worlds, time does,” Yoda replied. “Concern yourself with it, you must not. Go now, you have to.”

Ben frowned but nodded in agreement. How anyone could understand the little master was beyond him, but he was right in one thing: he had to go. There was only one problem however.

“How do I get off this planet?” Ben asked then. “I don’t sense any sentient lifeforms here. I can’t exactly buy a ship that’s also equipped with a hyperdrive.”

“As it happens, Master Yoda used to be in exile on this planet,” Obi-Wan replied. He walked over to one of the denser bushes and pushed the foliage away, revealing a path behind it. “Come, this way.”

Ben silently followed. He found it a little too convenient that one of the most powerful Jedi masters had been exiled to this place, but then how else would they have known of the Force Nexus? As convenient as it was, he has to be thankful. He wouldn’t have been able to make it back otherwise.

They walked for a lot shorter time than what Ben spent in the tunnel, finally arriving to another clearing that ran into a large pond. Trees dotted the water here and there and it generally looked to be completely dead of life.

“Reach out, Ben,” Luke said. “Do you feel it?”

Ben did as he was told, closing his eyes and allowing his consciousness to bubble up and spread out. He felt no life surrounding them, mostly just the flora of Dagobah, but then…

“It’s a ship.” Ben frowned. “No, it’s an escape pod.”

“Exactly,” Luke agreed. “This was the escape pod Master Yoda used to begin his exile. It’s a little rundown, but with some work, you could make it fly again.”

“You could get back to Rey with it, too,” Leia added. 

Hope bloomed inside Ben’s chest like a tiny flower growing into a pool of warmth where he knew Rey’s presence should be. He smiled and then lifted his hands, concentrating on the escape pod and allowing the Force to flow through him to it. He visualized the pod lifting up through the mud and other debris that settled on it, up until it was out of the water and settled next to him on the clearing. He heard the water sloshing around and the pod dripping onto the ground. Only when he felt the pod secure, did he open his eyes and let the Force disperse into thin air from his hands.

The pod looked worse for wear, but Ben forced himself to see the potential in it. He pushed back his sleeves and walked around the pod, trying to make out the damage time had on the machinery.

And then he went to work.

-

It took the better part of a year for Ben to bring the pod back into flying shape.

Since there was no life on Dagobah, he had to rely on ships that crashed on the planet for spare parts. Days upon days went by with him simply trekking through the wilderness to one of the ships he sensed, just so he could remove an old pump or a fuse that he then took back to the pod.

The pod didn’t have a hyperdrive so he had to incorporate one from another ship. That took some time while he figured out how to connect the drive to the pod’s navigation system. Surprisingly, Anakin was a lot of help during this time.

As it turned out, he built C-3PO back when he was a slave on Tatooine. It was weird, trying to make sense of the timelines, mostly because the man he looked at, seemed to be no older than he was; at the same time, he did build the robots of Ben’s childhood, a time that seemed to be long gone. 

After he was done renovating the pod, he took a couple of test flights, constantly calibrating the mechanics while in the air. That took some time, but once he could make a successful jump to another nearby system, Ben decided it was time to make an attempt jumping to Tatooine. 

-

The journey, even in hyperspace, took a day. Ben sat there, his mind practically vibrating with anticipation. He worked so hard to get back to Rey, and now that it was happening, he just couldn’t wait to be there. He had so many things to tell Rey.

Ben disengaged the hyperdrive when he was getting close to Tatooine. He planned a landing route on the onboard navigation system that would take him the closest to one of the moisture farms in the region. As Luke informed him, Rey took over the old Lars homestead where Luke grew up, and that was where Rey was making a living. After punching the coordinates in, he saw a clear landing path, and soon he landed on the surface of Tatooine.

He changed out of his dark clothes and into a set of more comfortable, sand colored garments that he found on one of the crashed ships back on Dagobah. He also packed a bag that he slung over his shoulder. Checking the navigation system one more time to orient himself, Ben took off, walking towards the shimmering mirage of a moisture farm at the edge of the horizon.

After what felt like hours of walking, pushing against the sand melting beneath his feet and drawing him down, Ben finally reached the homestead. He was breathing heavily, but instead of weariness, he felt alive, vibrant. He saw Rey, packing up boxes that she then put on the back of a speeder. The human shaped spot inside him, Rey’s presence in his psyche, radiated warmth. 

Rey stopped and turned towards him. Anticipation locked his muscles in place as he waited for the ultimate recognition. His heart beat wildly in his chest and he wanted nothing more than to run to Rey and envelop her in a hug, but he wanted Rey to make the connection first. 

When Rey’s eyes lit up with wonder and she gasped, Ben knew she recognized him. He couldn’t help but smile brilliantly.

“Ben?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure about the chapter count to be honest. I'm not a good planner when it comes to fan fiction, but I don't want to drag it on for too long. There are a couple things these two have to talk about, so one more chapter is certain.
> 
> As for mature content? I mean... We have a lot of brilliant writers writing excellent sex scenes, but for me, I'm unsure whether to write any, mostly because I don't have any real life experience to mimic it off of. I'm a lesbian for hell's sake. xD But I can try? IDK let me know

**Author's Note:**

> DON'T WORRY THE RESURRECTION WILL NOT MAKE SENSE BECAUSE WHY WOULD IT LOL


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